SpeechWorks & Vocent Integrate Voice Authentication Products

BOCA RATON, FL - Vocent, a provider of voiceprint authentication solutions, announced that its Voice Secure - Password Reset application has been integrated with the OpenSpeech Recognizer recognition engine and SpeechSecure speaker verification technology provided by SpeechWorks International Inc. (Nasdaq: SPWX). Vocent's newly-ported voice application is now available in beta release. An estimated 30% of all calls to IT help desks involve password reset, with industry analysts such as JP Morgan H&Q and the Gartner Group estimating that password reset requests cost between $100 and $300 per user, per year. Using Vocent's Voice Secure - Password Reset product, companies can automate their password or PIN reset process for internal employees or external customers. Instead of requiring a caller to speak with an IT help desk employee to reset a lost or expired password, Voice Secure - Password Reset provides the new password after the caller's voice is matched to the voiceprint on file. By automating password reset using speech recognition and speaker verification, Voice Secure - Password Reset reduces overall transaction costs by 50-80%, with customers typically enjoying a 90-day payback following deployment. The Vocent and SpeechWorks' partnership will enable companies to run Vocent's pre-packaged Voice Secure - Password Reset application using SpeechWorks OpenSpeech Recognizer speech recognition engine and SpeechSecure speaker verification technology. SpeechWorks' products, when deployed in combination, provide speech recognition and speaker verification technology for applications where security and convenience are required. Vocent's Password Reset application is part of a suite of Voice Secure pre-packaged speech applications that combine voiceprint authentication and speech recognition to securely automate specific business tasks such as password reset and account access. Steve Chambers, chief marketing officer at SpeechWorks, stated, "We at SpeechWorks are committed to providing our customers with access to the most useful and innovative speech applications on the market today. Vocent's packaged password reset application brings to market a product that provides quick, cost-effective installation and high quality voice user interface design. These are attributes that are necessary to accelerate the use of SpeechWorks products in the market." Chuck Buffum, CEO of Vocent, stated, "We're very pleased to announce the availability of our SpeechWorks-integrated product. SpeechWorks is a proven leader in the speech technology market and we are delighted to be working with this market leader to bring our Voice Secure - Password Reset product to an expanded market." Vocent formally announced its technology partnership with SpeechWorks in March 2002, and its Password Reset product is the first of several ready-to-deploy voice applications to be integrated with SpeechWorks software. Vocent will demonstrate its Voice Secure - Password Reset application at Conversations 2002, the SpeechWorks International User Group Conference taking place October 6 - 9, 2002 in Boca Raton, Florida.